It Was Beautiful
by Magic Crafter
Summary: My version of when Arwen and Elrond leave Rivendell, she for the last time, to go to Minas Tirith. Lots of references to the appendix. Bookverse.


**Disclaimer: **Nothing belongs to me, characters or places. It's property of Professor Tolkien's estate.

**A/N**: Arwen strikes me as a very enigmatic, quiet character, thus the lack of dialogue. I was really trying to see how much of her personality I could capture. Made it as bookverse as possible.

_I'm looking for a way to feel you hold me,  
To feel your heart beat, just one more time.  
I'm reaching back, trying to touch the moment,  
Each precious minute, that you were mine  
How do you prepare,  
When you love someone this way,  
To let them go a little more each day? _

_  
The hurting at the end,  
I'd go there again.  
'Cause it was beautiful.  
It was beautiful._

Some days missing you is overwhelming,  
When it hits me: you're not coming back.  
And in my darkest hours I have wondered  
Was it worth it, for the time we had?  


_Beautiful_, Jennifer Paige

Word of the end of the darkness in the East, of Mordor and Sauron and all his evil, had reached the untouchable valley of Imladris, where fear of the Dark Lord had lingered constantly inside every heart but where the landscape itself had remained as lovely and alive as it had ever been. The news came late into March, and it was decided by the Lord of the House that he should set out before the month was out if he was to reach Lorien and in turn Gondor when expected. As relieved as she might have been, however, his daughter, who was to accompany him, also dreaded each passing day. A great weight had been lifted by the knowledge that all, or nearly so, were safe from their own mortality, at least for a while longer. Her love survived. Indeed, she did not doubt where he would go now that the task had been completed, the Ring destroyed.

Love was overshadowed for a time by grief and regret. Arwen tried with desperation to compose herself and to keep a level head. Her choice had been made near a score of years earlier, in the golden wood under the stars. For a moment, she touched the ring that had sealed their promise, its emeralds and silver reassuring and at the same time, heartbreaking. When she was near him and she heard of him, her Estel was by far enough to keep her in Middle-earth. Her eyes fluttered closed and she could picture him as though he was there. Who could ever understand why a creature such as the daughter of Elrond would love a man so rough, unshaven, dirty and weather-worn?

But then, the reason he was…it had all been for her. Arwen had not been there to witness the scene, but she had spoken once or twice to his mother, and often enough to her own father, to know. She had been the impossible dream for a boy of twenty, and she had thought little of him at the time. He had simply been…a mortal boy who had newly come into his heritage, who thought her the most divine thing he had ever laid eyes on. Many mortals who took refuge in her father's House thought such. Yet still his words – [iTinuviel![/i, he had cried, as Beren had in Ages past – haunted her still. Arwen believed his infatuation would pass. He would find a woman with whom his heart truly rested, and she would not think much more on the handsome Heir of Isildur, save to be a charitable hostess when his inevitable returns to Rivendell occurred. To her both excitement and dismay, the next time she had seen him, he was no longer the young, impressionable Estel raised in the security of Elrond's care. Instead, he came to her then as a world-weary traveler, a Ranger of the North whose age had increased by some fifty years and whose love had never diminished.

Trivial, almost, had that promise seemed, the reality of Lothlorien leaving her somewhat giddy, certainly lovesick, and with a heavy heart when he had gone. The comforting second home had made everything simpler: she would be his wife, he would be the glorious King. What was leaving behind immortality when you had such a handsome lover, whose glory was next to assured? His dark hair and grey eyes, so amorous when they were turned on her, made him look as mighty as the Men of old, and she believed she knew all that her ancestor Luthien had felt when she was in the arms of her beloved.

Indeed, she knew – but now, the hour was upon her and it was cruel. Her eyes opened again, a grey pallet of despair marring her otherwise immaculate features. The decision, with Aragorn so far away and in the haven of Imladris, seemed far too rash.

_Mother – I have dreamt from the day you sailed to Valinor of seeing you once more. _Arwen did not know how anyone would explain to Celebrian why her daughter was absent from the grey ships. She would be heart-broken. How could she leave her family so incomplete? It had always been the twins, who were amusing and daring, and her, the beautiful, doted-on daughter. A whole family, a whole heart for her parents. The realization had never come to her before of just how difficult it must be for her father to let her go. Elrond had always felt the loss of his wife acutely, for though his healing had gone far enough to save her physically from her injuries, her emotions could not be sewn together with such ease. Now, though he would finally be reunited with Celebrian, she would be gone, and with no hope of coming back to him.

"My lady?" One of her ladies came to the doorway of the balcony, looking reluctant to disturb her. She turned her head slightly. "Your father…" But surely a few more minutes would not harm anyone's schedule? Arwen waved her hand slightly, though when she spoke, it was barely a whisper. "I will come. Leave me – please." She did not have the heart to say good-bye so quickly, though she had been saying her farewells to her father's House for some years by then. Everything had been memorized, every beam and every leaf in the forest beyond, yet she could not step away.

The greenery of Rivendell was only just making a return from the autumn and then the cold winter. Flowers were newly in bloom, and not all had blossomed yet. It was early, still, in the springtime, not yet April. Though she could not quite see it, the Bruinen's swift current sang a familiar tune in Arwen's ears. The mixed smell of friends and family and that of the ever-present nature became apparent; a scent she knew would never be again no matter where she went.

If only her brothers were there to keep the cheer among them all! Elledan and Elrohir were always capable of making even the most stone-faced company laugh. They had been mischievous in their youth, but Arwen dearly loved them. She held them, all of them, even the nameless servants who joined in the songs and dances only occasionally, in her heart, memories of a world and a life that would be as distant in Gondor as it would have been in Mordor. Men were not at all like her people, and she wondered if through their busy lives, full of complaints and bickering, that the mortals of Minas Tirith would notice her much at all. Certainly they would be glad to have a king, and to have heirs to secure the restored monarchy…but females, to Men, played such a different role.

Suddenly the prospect of going to a strange land frightened her more than a little. Arwen, who had stitched a banner upon which the standard of Gondor had glittered, was stricken with an unexplainable fear of a place where the people would be foreign and the city unknown. She would be forced to trade the familiarity and loving atmosphere of Rivendell and Lorien, so much a _part_ of their surroundings, for an imposing city made of white marble where she would know only one man, for whom she had sacrificed everything. Despite herself, she felt hot tears in her eyes.

The unexpected feeling of a hand on her shoulder almost made her jump. She had been so lost in her thoughts, regrets, memories, whatever they might be called, that she had not heard the entrance of another person at all. When she turned, it took her a moment to register who it was, and when she did, the tears from a moment before could no longer be restrained.

"Father," Arwen whispered, looking swiftly away from him, ashamed.

However, Elrond gently tilted her face back up so he could gaze upon his daughter properly, no matter her damp cheeks. Would that he could have spared her such pain, such a choice. Neither life was capable of making her completely happy, for what was life without a great love? All the same, a great love could not always make up for other things. Now, no matter what they felt, they could do little to change anything. She had made a promise to the man she loved, and he had given Aragorn his blessing, for as much as he loved his daughter, he also loved the boy he had raised as surely as he would have raised any son of his own.

Silence was often considered by Men awkward and the source of great discomfort, but they seemed to have the ability to convey as much to one another with silence as they would have verbally. Arwen put her arms around her father limply and leaned against him, wondering for the millionth time how she would be capable of living without the love and support of her family. Neither he nor her mother would know their grandchildren, and in turn, no child of hers would know any family save their parents, for hers could not stay in Middle-earth and Aragorn's parents were by now long in the gave. Oblivious to his guilty conscience, she tried to find words begging his forgiveness. How did one allow a child, who was supposed to be a great joy in your life, to instead cause you a lifetime's worth of pain?

As if she were a child, Elrond stroked the long shadows of his daughter's hair for a while. For a second's time, they were not parting nor were they grieving: they were only a parent and a child. "Come, Arwen. It is time."

The broken silence shattered her calm, and she had to take a deep breath to pull herself from his arms at all, fighting a much greater temptation to cling only tighter to him. Indeed she felt grateful for a moment that Aragorn would never truly see what she went through to give herself to him, as she had sworn she would with such naivety. Arwen put her tremulous hand in her father's and only paused for a moment to look over her shoulder at the lush forest with all the perfection of a painted canvas. It had been the setting, that wood, of her first meeting with the boy who now waited victoriously in Gondor for a woman he loved far more passionately than he should.

Stepping into the corridor, barely making a sound, a maid swiftly shut the door behind them. Rivendell had ceased to be a House of safety, of song and music and dance, of thought and love. Now it was merely the shell of something that had been, an era of the past, of safety in the midst of danger and friendship in the time of great enmity. The time of the Elves was gone, and thus she would become a mortal woman while all she knew sailed away or else died in both reality and memory.

Arwen closed her slender fingers around her father's a little more tightly, vowing that she would not shed tears for a fate of her choosing again. When she arrived in Gondor, she would be its Queen, and she would make a chapter for her life that would never interfere with the previous one.

Indeed, it was time. Her father had spoken truth. It was at long last time for her final farewell.


End file.
